Monday, March 06, 2017

Tuam mother and baby home - calls for Bon Secours order to disband and give assets to State

The Bon Secours order that ran the Tuam mother and baby home has come
under pressure to disband and to give up their assets to the State.

People
Before Profit (PBP) have called on the nuns to make a complete and
unreserved apology to the victims of the mother and baby home.

Speaking
this morning AAA-PBP TD Bríd Smith claimed the Bon Secour nuns had been
guilty of a "massive cover-up" of "criminal activity" which they had
denied for many years.

Ms Smith was joined by Deirdre Wadding, a former resident of Bessboro mother and baby home in Cork.

Ms
Wadding said the revelations that more than 700 babies had been buried
in pits in the Co Galway home, had shocked her but proved that "church
and State colluded from the very foundation of this State to oppress
women. Women and children have been brutalised by those twin forces for
decades now.

"For me it has been a very wobbly few days, to be
personal about it, as I read about Tuam it certainly stirred up my own
experiences," said Ms Wadding who was sent to Bessboro aged 19 in 1981.

She said even then the culture of "shame, isolation, banishment and loss" still existed.Calling
on the order to give up their assets and disband Ms Smith said: "Bon
Secour now run, and make lucrative profits from two private hospitals,
one in Glasnevin and the other in the University area of Cork. They are a
very wealthy organisation."

She added that their resources should
be used to compensate families involved and to provide memorial
services to remember the children buried in Tuam and other homes.

"The order itself should be disbanded and their assets handed over to the State.

"They would be two fine hospitals that the State could take over and run, not for profit but for the benefit of everybody."

"We
need to once and for all tell the church to get out of our lives, get
out of the lives of our children, get out of the lives of our women, get
out of beds, get out of our schools and get out of our hospitals" Ms
Smith said.